Report: UFC 66 Falls Short of 1.2 Million PPV ";Buys";

UFC 66, which took place Dec. 30 and featured a much-anticipated main event of UFC light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell and former champ Tito Ortiz, did not garner the 1.2 million pay-per-view “buys” that the UFC and president Dana White had anticipated, according to a report from Wrestling Observer.

In the weeks leading up to the event, the UFC’s publicity drive was geared heavily around that 1.2 million number. But it does appear that the event, which culminated with a third-round TKO victory for Liddell, did earn more than one million buys, making it the biggest non-boxing pay-per-view event in North American history.

(Most of this information is limited to Wrestling Observer subscribers, so if you want more details about the event’s success, I’d suggest you become a subscriber. Dave Meltzer’s MMA coverage for the publication is top-notch.)

UFC 66 wasn’t just a success on pay-per-view, though. The event sold out the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nev., with an attendance total of 14,607. The live gate ($5.4 million) was the highest in North American MMA history and topped the previous total by more than $2 million.

Although the event provided an amazing end to the 2006 UFC season, early indications are that March 3’s UFC 68 event could shatter the existing records — including total attendance and live gate — by an even wider margin.

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